Quinafloat

Lets try to put this "instant death" junk to bed once and for all. We are talking about 12-14 volts. The human body has a resistance of between 10,000 ohms and a million ohms. thus the normal worst case would be 14 volts /10,000 ohms giving 1.4 milliamps. Heart fibrillation (electric shock) starts at about 30 milliamps. (The best electric chairs worked at a minimum of 480 volts) This is exactly the same as for any 12 volt battery (unless Ohms law has recently been repealed and I haven't heard about it). In the same way that anything can be misused there are normal precautions to be taken and problems to be designed out. That is, as an example, why petrol is kept in cans and not polythene bags. If you really want to kill yourself PM me and I will explain how to do it with a 9v pp3 battery you can buy in any shop selling batteries. Lead acid batteries are highly dangerous objects for many reasons and any shorting of them is a problem, that is why the BSS requires covers on batteries. Incidentally the BSS office is aware of my work on a supercapacitor bank and I have agreed to inform them when I have a working system. I am sure there will be a full and frank exchange of any relevant safety related information.

My turn to sound the alarm bell. Supercaps and lead acid batteries do not play nicely together. The Bimble supercap bank is big enough to use as a starter battery. Connecting a supercap booster of that size means matching the voltages of the supercaps and the lead acid batteries first! If you connected a supercap bank of that size, but empty, to a lead acid battery that was fully charged it would be much the same as shorting the lead acid battery. The risks, are severely damaging the battery, or worst case, the battery exploding.

Narrowboat engines generally have a really easy time when compared to road vehicle engines. I think that a fastidious, so many hours regime is way over the top for such engines and their use, hence my every six months. This represents about every 300 hours running time (could be more or less). The recommendation is 250 hours for my engine. Apart from a yearly diesel clean and new filter for air and diesel, I tend not to meddle. At the 10 year point I had all hoses replaced and the tappets checked. Just one tappet was one thou out of specification. Modern oils actually do lubricate properly (which is more than they used to do). My engine does not use oil, as a result, despite the manual saying 5 1/2 litres of oil I just use 5 litres as I get 5 litre cans. I am not recommending neglecting engines in any way, however, just because something is written in a book it only means that it is based on the worst case scenario that the manufacturer can envisage for that engine.

I have a Beta (Kabota) 1505 with over 10,000 hours on it from new. Oil and filter change every 6 months. I would consider 2,500 very low hours. I think that comparing boat use to road vehicle use is a bit pointless as the conditions of use, and loads on the engine are very different. A hire company mechanic I spoke with said that the modern engines (Beta, Thornycroft, Isuzu etc.) usually ran for around 20,000 hours, but were not worth repairing when they did come to end of life.

I was brought up with the paint in the cool theory, and it works for me, however I often wonder how things get painted in hot sunny countries. Knowing how to use paint when the sun is shining would be a huge bonus. I'm sure things get painted in places like southern India or Arizona.

Surely the welcome should be permanent. Lots of differing viewpoints add to the value of a discussion, whether we personally like them, or not.

On the names thing, we can call them what we like. They may chose the name but the rest of the world chooses the nickname. Such wonders as Fleabay, Midland swindlers and CART will be with us for many a year. Some people call CaRT British Waterways to this day and everybody seems to understand.

Yep, they are really on the ball. I got an early warning letter to renew my boats BSS which is really good as it only has three years to run.

The annexes have now been loaded onto the CaRT site. http://canalrivertrust.org.uk/about-us/governance/national-advisory-groups/freight-advisory-group

Just to put the opposite spin on the whole thing, a shell has only two functions. 1 to keep the water out of the boat. 2, to support everything you put in the boat. So just choose the one you like the look of and suits your purpose. Unsurprisingly the view is exactly the same from a cheap boat as from an expensive one.

Ok, all is now well! Keys returned to their rightful owners. Many thanks to all concerned.

Things that require an instant surge of power, such as a nail gun, probably will not work. I gave mine away as it does not work from my Mastervolt inverter. For the rest I would not expect any problems. Most household equipment has wide tolerances these days

I had this problem using the standard alternator and a travel power. I just adjusted the tickover to around 1000 rpm. Problem solved.

I'm following the GeoffS lead as my wife says that the descriptions he gave match the couple on the boat. If that fails I will contact Braunston. Many thanks.

Hi Leo No2, any idea how we get to the annexes referred to on page 26. That is obviously where the meat of the discussion is. Without a statement of the work/costs and potential income involved the recommendations could well be just pipe dreams.

Many thanks. I now remember that the boat had "Hassall Green" on the side, but the people said that they had never been there. Maybe that could help identify it.

I know nothing about them excepting that they were heading north from Milton Keynes and left their keys at Giffard Park. Could be a good thing to give your contact number a call just in case. I suspect they will not notice the keys are missing for some time as they did not need them to start the boat.

No idea, what I do know is that they left their keys behind at Giffard park sanitary station. No.

If anyone sees the narrowboat "Northern Lights", a blue boat heading north from the Milton Keynes area, please let them know that their keys have been found. Contact information has been left at the Giffard pub and that the keys are aboard my boat, moored not far away.

A couple of bits that I have had added or still want to add: a lip across the back of the roof to stop water dripping on things (and you) when travelling in the rain. 2 extra bollards at the front, 1 either side so you dont have to leap on to the prow of the boat to use the single bollard in the centre (lots of fun in the wet). loops to put the sunshade through at the front and back. If you intend to use rivers a lot, a bollard at each corner of the roof (some banks are as high or higher than the boat). Caps above the doors and side hatches to stop rain dripping into the boat. All of the above are minor and would not delay a build, but either add to comfort and make life easier. In the case of the two bollards at the front they add to the safety. Hopefully your builder supplies all of them in his standard fit.

I was using ohms law, you are probably using Oscar Wilde's law.

They could be quite shocking. 300 volts crossing a person of 10,000 ohms resistance delivers 30ma. 30ma is the generally accepted threshold of heart fibrillation. For the good order, it is generally accepted that the human body, with intact dry skin has a resistance between 10,000 and 1,000,000 ohms, but everybody is different. Don't touch them.

I can assure you that there are many of us, on the canals and rivers, who have no interest in pubs. You will find us moored in the wilds.

That might be a bit self defeating as the only power available might be the battery itself. At home or at work, there are block heaters available and they do the job pretty well, but there are many places where power is not readily available. I would imagine that someone has developed some form of catalytic heater but I have not heard of it. Very large tracts of the North American continent suffer cold winters, and the people there have developed many things and ways to cope, but when it comes to cars, it very often comes down to jump leads.

Thank you for reinforcing my points about initial costs. This would not make sense at that price. Similarly no one was advocating solar panels when they were £700 pounds per hundred watts despite the fact that they produced the same amount of power as today and saved the same amount of diesel. Similarly no one was advocating LEDs when they were £50 a bulb and saved diesel. They were ridiculous technologies to use at those prices as using the extra diesel was far cheaper. Of course in todays boating world, where they are no longer innovative technologies people now consider them obvious technologies but only because the initial investment price has dropped. The only common standards are price/performance and return on investment. I am not trying to abuse your post in any way. It just made the point I was trying to make with succinct clarity.